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BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP - 12 September 2004) - Insurgents hammered central Baghdad on
Sunday with one of their most intense mortar and rocket barrages
ever in the heart of the capital, heralding a day of violence that
killed nearly 60 people nationwide as security appeared to spiral
out of control.

At least 37 people were killed in Baghdad alone. Many of them
died when a U.S. helicopter fired on a disabled U.S. Bradley
fighting vehicle as Iraqis swarmed around it, cheering, throwing
stones and waving the black and yellow sunburst banner of Iraq's
most-feared terror organization.

The dead from the helicopter strike included Arab television
reporter Mazen al-Tumeizi, who screamed, ``I'm dying, I'm dying,''
as a cameraman recorded the chaotic scene. An Iraqi cameraman
working for the Reuters news agency and an Iraqi freelance
photographer for Getty Images were wounded.

Maimed and lifeless bodies of young men and boys lay in the
street as the stricken U.S. vehicle was engulfed in flames and
thick black smoke.

Across the country, the death toll Sunday was at least 59,
according to figures from the Health Ministry, the Multinational
Force command and local authorities.

Nearly 200 people were wounded, more than half of them in
Baghdad.

Strong detonations again shook the center of Baghdad after
sunset Sunday. There were no reports of damage or casualties.

As the early morning barrage was under way in Baghdad,
insurgents attacked the infamous U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison on the
city's western edge. Several mortar shells exploded outside the
complex about 6 a.m., and about 20 minutes later a pickup truck
packed with artillery shells crashed through the chain-link fence
on the outer perimeter.

Marines opened fire and the vehicle exploded before reaching the
main security wall, killing the driver, a military statement said.
Seven people were later arrested, it said.

Tawhid and Jihad, a militant group linked to al-Qaida and led by
Jordanian terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, said it carried
out Sunday's coordinated campaign of violence in Baghdad.

In an Internet statement, the group boasted that it holds the
initiative in the Iraqi insurgency and possesses the ``capability
to surprise the enemy and hit its strategic installations at the
right time and place.''

The statement's source could not be verified, but the scope and
intensity of the attacks raised serious questions about the state
of security, which has deteriorated since the June 28 transfer of
sovereignty to the interim Iraqi government.

``We are adamant that we are going to defeat terrorism,'' Allawi
said. ``We intend to confront them and bring them to justice.''

Interior Minister Falah Hassan al-Naqib suggested the attacks
could be in response to a government operation against the Adel
neighborhood of west Baghdad, an insurgent hotbed. However, the
scope of the attacks suggested they had been in preparation for
some time.

Secretary of State Colin Powell acknowledged that the U.S.-led
coalition faced a ``difficult time'' in Iraq but said the United
States had a plan to quash the insurgency and bring those areas
under control in time for national elections in January.

The insurgency ``will be brought under control,'' Powell said on
NBC's ``Meet The Press.'' ``It's not an impossible task.''

Near Hillah, 60 miles south of Baghdad, three Polish soldiers
were killed in an ambush - raising Poland's death toll in Iraq to
13 - and a bomb killed three Iraqi national guardsmen. A district
police chief was killed in an attack in Baghdad's Yarmouk
neighborhood.

Meanwhile, 10 people were killed and 40 were wounded in fighting
in the insurgent stronghold of Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad,
said hospital director Abdel Munim Aftan.

Three American soldiers and two Iraqi civilians were wounded
Sunday when a suicide driver blew up his car next to a U.S. Army
convoy on the road to Baghdad International Airport, American
sources said. The vehicle was one of seven car bombs reported
Sunday in Iraq, two of which did not explode, the sources said.

Powell did not elaborate on the plan for addressing the
insurgency, but senior U.S. officials in Iraq have spoken of a
multi-pronged strategy involving overtures to tribal leaders,
economic incentives and the use of force as the best way to prevail
against the resistance.

Rockets and mortar shells began raining down before dawn on the
Green Zone, headquarters of the Iraqi government and its U.S.
allies, and other parts of central Baghdad. As the shelling
continued after sunrise, U.S. troops backed by armored vehicles
moved into the streets searching for the attackers.

A Bradley fighting vehicle rushing down Haifa Street, a major
traffic artery near the Green Zone, to assist a U.S. patrol was
disabled by a car bomb about 6:50 a.m., the U.S. military said. Two
Bradley crewmen were wounded by the bomb and four were injured by
grenades and small-arms fire as they fled the vehicle, the military
said.

Jubilant fighters, curiosity seekers and young boys swarmed
around the burning vehicle, dancing, cheering and hurling
firebombs. Several young men placed a black and yellow banner of
Tawhid and Jihad in the barrel of the Bradley's main gun.

Fearing the crowd would loot the vehicle of weapons and
ammunition, American soldiers called for air support, and as U.S.
Army helicopters flew over the burning Bradley ``they received
small-arms fire from the insurgents in vicinity of the vehicle,'' a
military statement said.

The helicopters ``fired upon the anti-Iraqi forces and the
Bradley preventing the loss of sensitive equipment and weapons,''
the statement said. ``An unknown number of insurgents and Iraq
civilians were wounded or killed in the incident.''

Iraq's Health Ministry said 13 people were killed and 61 wounded
on Haifa Street, though it was unclear how many were killed by the
helicopter strike. Scattered shoes, pools of fresh blood and debris
littered the street.

``We were standing near the destroyed vehicle when the
helicopter started firing, so we rushed to safety in a nearby
building,'' Alaa Hassan, 24, said from his hospital bed. ``I went
back to the scene to help the wounded people when the helicopter
fired again and I was hit in the chest.''

Twelve more people died and 41 were injured in other violence
across the city Sunday, the Health Ministry said.

Elsewhere, gunmen attacked a group of policemen in the northern
city of Mosul, killing one and wounding seven, police said.

Also in the north, three security officers were wounded when
attackers opened fire as they stood guard near the Dibis oilfields
northeast of Kirkuk. Two others were injured in a drive-by shooting
west of Kirkuk, said Maj. Gen. Anwar Mohammed Amin of the Iraqi
national guard.

Security officers guarding the oil-rich Kirkuk area have
repeatedly been targeted by militants, who have blown up dozens of
pipelines in a bid to disrupt reconstruction efforts and undermine
the U.S.-backed interim government.